Monday, June 3, 2013

Full FUBAR Ahead!!!!!

We've gotta go get her autograph. Stay tuned for more salacious innuendo about Lyn Fitch, the antichrist of the progressive radio personified!

Meanwhile, to get pumped up, read some the highlights of our best and brightest demagogues on IMC! Misinformed defamation , innuendo, cherry picking and personal attacks aren't just a strategy with us...it's a lifestyle!

How nefarious a union buster is the KBOO "station manager"? Nefarious
enough to suggest to KBOO staff that they unionize -- so she could bust
it! Hahaha. What an idiot! Helping start a union at KBOO, just so this
"station manager" could stomp on it like it was a loathsome bug.
Unfreakin' believable. To what depths of depraved wickedness will this
"station manager" not descend? "Union organizer/buster". I didn't know
that was a thing.

If funding is a problem, WHY DID the station manager cancel the Winter drive, sacrificing $50,000 in revenue?

But the problem isn't funding. It's a failure to recognize the true
function and functionality of KBOO. Our strong community depends on
the respectful treatment of the people who have dedicated a hundred plus
work years to our institution. We owe them respect, gratitude and
thanks. My partner Ani,for example, could be much wealthier by
exploiting her other professional talents, yet she has devoted long
years, stress, and ultra-effort to KBOO.

that most of the folks in an uproar have partial facts, but not all of
them. that most of the folks in an uproar have been duped by a
disgruntled staffer and her spouse.

No one has been fired. the staff just don't want a manager. on their
own before they hired a manager, they ran the station into the ground
financially. they wrote illegal personnel documents because they don't
have experience, they only care about their reduced sick time and having
to fill out time sheets.

it's a shame people who are angry don't think about what they have
heard being accurate, because it's not a complete story. parts are
conveniently omitted. i come to make radio at kboo not serve the
personal interests of staff. i come to make radio, not to advocate for
the staff's sick leave.

and if you have seen documents that back up their claims, make them
public, cause i haven't seen any proof, only rumors and emails. no proof
of what the staff or their family members have been saying. none, not
on indymedia or anywhere else. there is zero evidence to back up their
claims. and i challenge anyone out there to come up with any
substantiating document. don't be a tool.

[Oops. Ignore that last one. Obviously a super sekrit psyops troll! Where's the delete button on this thing?]

I just wrote to the Board President, asking him to consider setting a
special Board meeting, which he can do (with a couple more Directors)
to rescind the Station Manager's union-busting powers, embrace the
union, and restore the employees' rights. There are a majority of Board
Directors who, I think, could be persuaded to do this. It would
certainly give a chance to restoring Staff morale, and allowing us to
get on with the business of dancing our way to a new society.

I think unionizing the staff would be a great idea and probably the only
option left for KBOO to be able to get the bad staff out of the
picture. With a union, the staff cannot run the station and the freedom
to run KBOO in to the ground either through hostility or committees
will be ended. The staff will have to start keeping time sheets for the
union and can longer attack managers for proper record keeping. Maybe
even having a time clock on the wall to punch. Many of the freedoms
that the staff have enjoyed for decades, will soon be over. They will
be employees of the Union and not 'guardians' of KBOO anymore. The
union will be able to discredit those that need to be replaced. It will
take longer, but will have the same result in the end.

There is no 'resistance', there is only vile mouthed, misinformed,
half-truth telling dysfunctional misfits looking to create even more of a
mess out of KBOO. The only Cause should be 'revitalizing KBOO' and not
bankrupting it. There are also those that use their positions on staff
or on the board to serve their personal relationships and not to serve
the good of the station. So go ahead, organize, create a dysfunctional
Resistance, take KBOO all the way down into the ground financially and
lose her license this year while you're at it. You stay stuck on a
winter membership drive, not caring if you state facts or fictions. You
don't get the big picture. Membership drives will not feed us,
membership continues to decline year after year because we are no longer
valuable to the community. KBOO has to cut staff and staff perks or it
needs to learn how to find a way to revive drives or find others ways
to raise money. Beating up on those that are supposed to raise the money
for KBOO is pretty smart! We can cut more jobs at KBOO now. You don't
see the big picture because your sight is short and biased. Your
information is incorrect and in some places, pure lies.

[Aw heck! Another psyops troll got through. Guess I need to clean out the inter tubes. They're under here somewhere...]

I have obtained a copy of a letter sent to KBOO workers. As many now
know, KBOO workers organized last month, after the KBOO Board Of
Directors launched a new top-down management paradigm at the radio
station. Whereas KBOO has had managers in the past, the tone of
relations with the Board and its hired manager has been one of
cooperation, or at least, respect. Now KBOO workers have been stripped
of sabbaticals, most of their compensatory time, most accrued sick pay,
et cetera, and the new manager ("Station Navigator" Lynn Fitch) has
attempted to fire all of them at once.

At a cost of thousands of dollars so far, Lynn Fitch has hired
Bullard Law, a notorious union-busting firm. Here is the full text of
the letter sent to KBOO workers. It gets really interesting in the
sixth paragraph.

This is very upsetting news. I am familiar with Lynn Fitch's penchant
for drama. She sees herself as a change agent and has a checkered past
career-wise. I won't be supporting KBOO while she is onboard buying ads
from the Oregonian, of all places.

I hope cooler heads prevail, and this shake up becomes a folly of the past post-haste.

We don't hold with ANYONE BUT US doing the drama thing! it's in our new union contract. Oh yeah! And there's nothing more scurrilous then buying advertisement for our small struggling independent radio station someplace people might read them! What was Fitch thinking?

I am only saying "this is hearsay" because I am reading about this
through Theresa Mitchell's and other anonymous posts (from staff?) on
indymedia. Theresa is writing with some authority and seems to be quite
knowledgeable about what is going on, but I always thought Theresa was a
volunteer, not staff. How does she know about all these human
resources details about benefits if she is only a volunteer? Since she
is not experiencing these cuts first-hand, she is reporting what she
hears from other staff -- hence "hearsay." Most of the postings are
anonymous, so, since the reader cannot judge the credibility of the
writer, it is all "hearsay," unless the author is posting his or her
name.

Theresa's specific posts on indymedia over the last week or so
mention issues about benefits (specifically indicating that maternity
leave is being cut to 3 weeks from 6 weeks, sick leave is being cut from
80 hours to 40 hours, timecards are being requested, and sabbaticals
are being cut). Theresa's and others' posts, including Station Manager
Lynn Fitch's, report that KBOO is indeed changing its policy to
"at-will employment" as opposed to firing being justified only "for
cause." Station Manager Fitch reports in a posting that a new parent
with an infant was allowed to bring their baby to work and this was in
response to the cuts in paid maternity benefits. Station Manager Fitch
and other postings indicate that the amount of accumulated sick leave is
going to be limited.

As a KBOO member, I am trying to find out exactly what is going on
here. The "hearsay" I am reporting comes from postings on indymedia,
some from somewhat reliable sources (Theresa and Station Manager Fitch)
and some anonymous (which have less credibility).

This entire situation reminds me of what went on with the Portland
Alliance. A lot of "dirty laundry" was being aired on-line that really
should have been attempted to be resolved "in-house" with the parties
actually involved without freaking out the entire KBOO community. I
would venture to say that most -- if not all -- of the KBOO community,
including myself, is likely to back staff rather than management when it
comes to working conditions.

However, if what Theresa says is true (and she certainly is
repeating it often enough), that staff is up in arms about having to
submit timecards, about not being able to stockpile large quantities of
sick leave, about not having 2 weeks of paid sick leave every year,
about not being able to take year-long (paid or unpaid) sabbaticals,
about having to stay home with a new baby or find someone else to do so
(with or without pay), well, welcome to the real world! The rest of us
poor slobs -- some of whom are KBOO members and volunteers -- have been
working that way (with and without pay) for a l-o-n-g time.

The threat to fire the entire staff and re-hire (or not) is very disturbing.

Since Theresa posted Station Manager Fitch's letter to staff on-line
and it is now public, perhaps Theresa and/or Station Manager Fitch
and/or staff could answer my questions.

They are legitimate questions and I'm not the only KBOO member asking them.

DEFECTING FROM THE INNER PARTY?

Then start packing for the Happy Valley Reeducation Center, where we guarantee ALL Party Members WILL be HAPPY.

But seriously folks...

For readers who don't know the background, this blog was started by a group of KBOO radio fans.

Recent events at the station have been blown out of proportion by a small group of KBOO members who feel threatened by actions of management trying to address the very real issue of financial trouble and keep the station viable.

These people instead believe they are victims of a conspiracy involving Station Navigator Lynn Fitch and have promoted their cause with the worst kind of missionary zeal, in some cases using unethical tactics like impersonation. They call themselves "Keep KBOO KBOO" and appear to be led by Theresa Mitchell, who has a penchant for using revolutionary imagery and jargon. Allies include KBOO Board members abusing their influence. This begged for satire, thus this blog was born.

We are documenting the ongoing tussle and any new fibs and misinformation the "Keep KBOO KBOO" crowd creates. They also have a website called savekboo.org . We recommend anyone leaving comments there to archive them in text or images, as a certain amount of rewriting history is known to happen there.

BACK TO THE BARRICADES COMRADES!!!!

Praise for "Save KBOO from Save KBOO"

"is the funniest thing I've read in a long time." - delighted at Portland Indymedia June 7, 2013

"Anyway, the obsessives here are directly and clearly defined by how many 'NYAH NYAH NYAH-NYAH-NYAH-NYAH (e.g. "save kboo from asave kboo")'-titled smear-blog Obsessive Paranoiac websites they can manage to create in a week. " -huh? at Portland Indymedia June 7, 2013